Thank you, I remembered Goat Rodeo Sessions forming, but forgot to check back to see if they produced anything. Attaboy is amazing. And you probably already know this, but the gentleman with the Mandolin was the lead singer for Nickel Creek, and has a gorgeous voice. Check out Sweet Afton and The Lighthouse Tale for a treat.

I don't really think that is strictly true. I've been playing bluegrass for seven years or so, and the style is traditionally geared around simplicity. It was a music meant for simple people without fancy instruments or technical training, in a typically informal setting.

Most of the instruments were made in manners that required little technical skill. Banjos are tuned to a open chord tuning to take most of the thinking out of the fretwork and relies mostly on your ability to finger roll. Put clawhammer style in that mix and you've made even more of a auto-mechanical response out if it than something you are actively thinking about, like say, classical guitar, or Jimmy Page noodling.

Wash tub basses were more traditional than stand up bass, and while their bassist is fantastic, playing 'slap' bass is certainly a more 'lazy' way of playing it. Guitars and violins(fiddle, different more informal playing style) were probably about your most technical instruments and guitars were often tuned to open chords to match the banjos because they were played like banjos(all finger rolls and simple fretwork). Take a look at Merle Travis and you'll notice the style he coined is very similar to playing a banjo.

Jug bass, mouth harp, harmonica (typically in a pentatonic scale that matches the banjo to make it hard to play a 'wrong' note). All fairly easy instruments to someone who has thirty minutes a night or so to dedicate to them.

While most popular bluegrass that you gleen from the media might make your statement a little bit more true as that is most of what you see, if you've been around the circuit, or know the history of the music you'd understand that the music is really meant not to require a lot of knowledge of music or dedication to your instrument in general. If you take a simple music like bluegrass and apply the dedication of a professional musician, you get what you see in those videos.

Now I'm going to be nitpicking a little bit. What you're talking about is old-time music. Clawhammer, spoons, harmonica, fiddle, mouth harp, spoons. This was the "dance music" of the 1800s and has a very simple, repetitive style. Everyone plays the melody, there tends to be very simplified chords, and the whole purpose was to play for dances. Musicians would switch out as they wanted to dance and take breaks.

Bluegrass music was a completely different style developed by Bill Monroe. The harmonies are styled after the brother harmonies of the 1930s and the three and four-part harmonies of baptists churches. The harmonies are complicated, either very tight, ridged three-part with tenor and baritone (the third and the fifth) or with descending and ascending brother harmony components.

The instrumentation, as a whole, is very complicated. The musicianship is at a level that is much higher than old-time musicians at the time, and the make-up of the band was consistent (no spoons, no mouth harp, no harmonica, no "doubling up" of instruments). There was no dance component to the music, even though a lot of the instrumentals were derived from hornpipes and reels. The melodies became quite complicated, and it was one musician showing his expertise on the instrument while the other players provided back up, very similar to the jazz-style of playing music.

Listen to early Bill Monroe, Jesse McReynolds and Herschel Sizemore (mandolin); Don Reno, Earl Scruggs and Sonny Osborne (banjo); Kenny Baker, Chubby Wise and Paul Warren (fiddle). The virtuoso on their respective instruments are remarkable. And that technical expertise continued through the 70s and 80s. Tony Rice, Clarence White (guitar); Alan Munde, John Hickman (banjo); John Duffy, Tim O'Brien (mandolin)... just to name a few. It carries on to the musicians of today as well. Bluegrass musicians are EXTREMELY technical in their playing. Even something that seems as simple as rhythm guitar is technical in their approach.

Ha, Bill Monroe said there was no place for dobro in bluegrass (a sentiment i really don't believe). But yes, Josh Graves, Mike Auldridge, and one of the greatest musicians on the planet, Jerry Douglas. Though I also enjoy listening to Rob Ickes. Ivan Rosenberg is also a dobro player I enjoy listening to.

I'm well familiar with most of your suggestions and took down a few others, thanks.

I could nitpick even more, but I'll leave it right here as a interesting lesson in Bluegrass/Americana, and some of their differences, for the rest of the people watching to do a little research on their own with.

It's an amazing music with amazing players all around. People like Merle Travis and Alison Krauss are fantasic, technically speaking (don't even get me started on her voice, or his accuracy). But it was a rural music played by rural people on any occasion it was warranted (or not) by anyone around who just happened to 'know a little' about whatever instrument they are playing.